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ardalis (Steve Smith)

@ardalis.com

3.3K followers 750 following 2.1K posts

Software Architect and Force Multiplier of dev teams. Husband. Dad to 4 kids: 3 ADHD sons, 2 twins, 1 daughter. 💡NimblePros.com 🔥devBetter.com 🎥YouTube.com/ardalis Pluralsight | Dometrain author Microsoft Dev MVP 💥Combat Engineer veteran

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · Nov 11

Introduce yourself with some jobs you’ve done apart from what you do

- 🍔 🍟Burger King cook

- ⌨️ 🖥️ Data entry temp

- 📦 🚛 Loaded trucks

- 🇺🇸💥🫡 Combat Engineer Officer

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

Less than 10% had *any* automated tests.

This is the real killer of agility, because without automated tests, you lose the ability to make bigger changes in your design with any confidence. The longer this goes on, the more you build on top of the poor design, making it ever harder to update.

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

Over 2/3 had horrible auth vulnerabilities. This is only going to get worse. One study found that while using AI agents did help productivity by 4x, it increased the introduction of security flaws by 10x. That's not a good trade-off for most companies.

apiiro.com/blog/4x-velo...

4x Velocity, 10x Vulnerabilities: AI Coding Assistants Are Shipping More Risks

Every CEO Is Mandating AI Coding. Few Realize They’re Mandating Risk Too. Here’s the Data to Prove It. When Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong ordered every engineer to adopt AI coding assistants (and fired...

apiiro.com

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

And most of the time the business doesn't let developers see costs in the portal (if they even have access at all, which in most cases they shouldn't for production), so the real costs can be very opaque.

And it becomes another thing to optimize for in your software design. Another -ility.

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

It also makes sense to really look at your cloud resources and see where you can slim them down, and if you need more *at times* figure out how to configure autoscaling for those resources.

Many developers have no concept of how their code or even architecture will translate into actual costs...

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

Adding basic indexes to databases should be part of the developer workflow. It used to be we had dedicated DBAs for such things but that's a rare luxury for a startup. Testing with 100x your current user base is a good way to identify problems like these earlier, too.

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

The OP goes on to note:

what i found in those 47 codebases:

like 89% had zero database indexing. ZERO. your app is slow because youre searching through 100,000 records on every single request. thats not a bug thats just... why

76% were paying for like 8x more servers than they needed. the average is 13% utilization - youre paying for 100 servers and using 13 of them. burning $3k-15k a month for nothing

68% had auth vulnerabilities that would make any security person have a panic attack

91% had no automated tests at all. so every new feature is literally russian roulette

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

Without some focus on architecture and quality, going fast by copy-paste-coding all the things results in a horrendous amount of technical debt in a very short period of time.

There's always a case for building simpler and shipping faster, but keeping needless repetition out pays dividends quickly

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

I, too, see this pattern all too often, and it's not just with startups, but in enterprises as well:

and theres this pattern that shows up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

month 1-6: everything is great. moving fast, shipping features, customers are happy, lifes good

month 7-12: things start slowing down. weird bugs popping up. "we'll fix it later" becomes the team motto

month 13-18: you literally cannot add a new feature without breaking 3 old ones. every deploy is stressful

month 19-24: youve now hired 3 more engineers and theyre just maintaining the existing mess. not building anything new

month 25+: rebuild from scratch or watch your startup die in slow motion

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

More info in the docs:
learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet...

Install Aspire CLI - Aspire

Learn how to install Aspire CLI, which is a .NET global tool. Use the Aspire CLI to create, run, and manage Aspire projects.

learn.microsoft.com

ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

You can immediately use it to create new templated aspire apps.

$aspire new aspire-starter Enter the project name (aspiretests): AspireSample Enter the output path: (./AspireSample): ./AspireSample 📦 Using project templates version: 9.5.1 ✔ Project created successfully in C:\dev\scratch\aspiretests\AspireSample.$

ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

Alternately using `dotnet tool install aspire.cli`:

dotnet tool install -g Aspire.Cli --prerelease

aspire --version

ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 1d

Installing the aspire CLI tool:

#dotnet

Invoke-RestMethod https://aspire.dev/install.ps1 -OutFile aspire-install.ps1

Invoke-Expression "& { $(Invoke-RestMethod https://aspire.dev/install.ps1) }"

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 2d

Auditing 47 Failed Startups for why they failed

www.reddit.com/r/Entreprene...

From the Entrepreneur community on Reddit

Explore this post and more from the Entrepreneur community

www.reddit.com

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 2d

AI-proficient software developers will henceforth be known as prose pros…

#MarkdownAllTheThings

ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 2d

LLMs are a kind of “prose compiler” - @scott.hanselman.com #AzureDevSummit AI

Reposted by ardalis (Steve Smith)

NimblePros @nimblepros.com · 2d

Wanting to catch @ardalis.com at a conference this month?

✈️ This month, he still has 2 conferences in Portugal and 1 in Netherlands!

👀 Be sure to check out his Fall 2025 Speaking Tour schedule: ardalis.com/ardalis-fall...

Ardalis Fall 2025 Speaking Tour

Join Steve Smith (Ardalis) at 5 major developer conferences in October 2025 across 3 countries. Sessions on Clean Architecture, SOLID principles, microservices, and modular monoliths. Includes JetBrai...

ardalis.com

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 2d

Good times…

ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 2d

Learning about the latest #Aspire improvements from @maddymontaquila.net at Azure Dev Summit

Summary slide with resources for Aspire

Aspirified
aka.ms/aspire-discord
@aspire.dev BlueSky
aspiredotdev YouTube

Reposted by ardalis (Steve Smith)

Scott Hunter @coolcsh.bsky.social · 3d

Watching my boss Amanda and @bradygaster.bsky.social and @paulyuk.bsky.social keynote at #azuredevsummit in Lisbon.

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 4d

Did factory robots?

Reposted by ardalis (Steve Smith)

sarahquaint @sarahquaint.bsky.social · 5d

While providing tech support for my FIL:

FIL: What's that screen?

ME: The terminal. You should never use it.

FIL: Never?

ME: So you know how I'm allowed to watch you open the electrical panel and swap out breakers, but I'm not allowed to ever open up it myself?

FIL: Ah! I understand, thank you.

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ardalis (Steve Smith) @ardalis.com · 4d

Prices are artificially low and subsidized in the current investor-fueled landscape. Choice is high and costs low for consumers. But that will all change when the investors start demanding profits and ROI. And we’ll see then where costs land and how demand for AI responds. #AI

Reposted by ardalis (Steve Smith)

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 4d

“YOU hit HER.”

CHICAGO - Trump’s ICE goons ram into a passing car after snatching someone, then brutally drag the female driver of the car they hit out of her car with guns drawn and arrest her too. (Her brother says she’s a citizen)

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Reposted by ardalis (Steve Smith)

Sheryl Gay Stolberg @sherylnyt.bsky.social · 5d

BREAKING: Friday night massacre underway at CDC. Doznes of "disease detectives," high-level scientists, entire Washington staff and editors of the MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report) have all been RIFed and received the following notice:

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Reposted by ardalis (Steve Smith)

John Skiles Skinner @skiles.blue · 5d

I don't know if there's such a thing as a "world cyberwar" but I think we are in one? and the US is determined to lose it. 🧵

Today the admin is mass-firing the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the nation's cybersecurity protection across all levels of government.

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